BLM office in Carlsbad still dealing with 19 friends who were lost in the blaze

By Stella Davis

sdavis@currentargus.com

Posted:
07/03/2013 08:43:58 AM MDT

In this 2012 photo provided by the Cronkite News, members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots run during training on the use of emergency fire shelters. On Sunday, June 30, 2013, 19 members of the Prescott, Ariz.-based crew were killed in the deadliest wildfire involving firefighters in the U.S. for at least 30 years. The firefighters were forced to deploy their emergency fire shelters - tent-like structures meant to shield firefighters from flames and heat - when they were caught near the central Arizona town of Yarnell, according to a state forestry spokesman. (AP Photo/Cronkite News, Connor Radnovich) (AP)

CARLSBAD >> The enormity of the loss of 19 members the elite Prescott, Ariz., Granite Mountain Hotshots, a wildland firefighting team, is still sinking in for Bureau of Land Management Carlsbad Field Office's wildland firefighting team, said Ty Bryson, fire management officer.

The Carlsbad BLM fire team has worked with the Arizona team on several fires in New Mexico and elsewhere.

The disaster Sunday afternoon all but wiped out the 20-member Hotshot fire crew, leaving the Prescott's fire department reeling.

"They were here in 2011 on the Tom's Canyon fire that was about 10 to 12 miles west of Carlsbad. After that fire, they stayed on another week to help us out with the initial attack on some other fires that broke out," Bryson said. "During the fire, the crew bosses would come in for briefing on the day's activities and I got to know them. Our team also worked with them on several fires throughout the nation," Bryson said. "They were good guys. When we would see them on other fires, they always were friendly with us. It hasn't fully sunk in that they are gone. They were a 20-man crew and all but one died. It's hard to wrap your mind around that."

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Bryson said going into a dangerous situation is part of the job and wildland firefighters, including himself and the local BLM fire crew, are always cognizant of the dangers and what could befall them.

He said the BLM crew plans to send its condolences to the Prescott Fire Department

An out-of-control blaze overtook the elite group of firefighters trained to battle the nation's fiercest wildfires as they tried to protect themselves from the flames under fire-resistant shields.

It was the most firefighters killed battling a wildfire in the U.S. in decades.

The lightning-sparked fire, which spread to at least 2,000 acres amid triple-digit temperatures, also destroyed 200 homes and sent hundreds fleeing from Yarnell, a town of about 700 residents about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. Residents huddled in shelters and local restaurants, watching their homes burn on TV as flames lit up the night sky in the forest above the town.

"We grieve for the family. We grieve for the department. We grieve for the city," Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo said at a news conference Sunday evening. "We're devastated. We just lost 19 of the finest people you'll ever meet."

A total of 250 firefighters and support personnel were assigned to the fire as of Sunday. Fire managers said a top-level management team and another four Hotshot crews were on the way Monday. They typically have 20 members each.

The National Fire Protection Association website lists the last wildland fire to kill more firefighters as the 1933 Griffith Park fire of Los Angeles, which killed 29. The most firefighters - 340 - were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, according to the website.

Hotshot crews go through specialized training and are often deployed soon after a fire breaks out. Sometimes they hike for miles into the wilderness with chain saws and backpacks filled with heavy gear to build lines of protection between people and fires. They remove brush, trees and anything that might burn in the direction of homes and cities. This crew had worked other wildfires in recent weeks in New Mexico and Arizona.

As a last-ditch effort at survival, Hotshot crew members are trained to dig into the ground and cover themselves with the tent-like shelter made of fire-resistant material, Fraijo said. The hope in that desperate situation is that the fire will burn over them and they will survive.

"It's an extreme measure that's taken under the absolute worst conditions," Fraijo said.

Prescott, which is more than 30 miles northeast of Yarnell, is home to one of 110 Hotshot crews in the United States, according to the U.S. Forest Service website. The unit was established in 2002, and the city also has 75 suppression team members.